Planning and executing a Web site

There are so many aspects to the development of a Web site. I’d like to pull back the curtain and talk a bit about the process. Though it may seem like the process of creating a Web site should be fairly simple—after all, there are millions of sites out there—without the requisite planning a Web site can be as effective as a welcome mat: trodden underfoot coming and going.

Here are the five general phases to Web site conception and development:

1. Conception: realization and urgency surface
2. Planning: needs and goals scrutinized
3. Design: mission and image become tangible
4. Implementation: content and function coalesce
5. Launch: testing and review conclude

Conception

The realization that a Web site is needed can come for organizations new and old. A new product or service could be in development, or an organization has outgrown its current offering. When your design starts to smell a bit musty, your content hasn’t been updated in the past decade, or you aren’t reaching the audience you need, it might be time to consider a new Web project.

Think about what you want to get out of the site.

Think about what you want to get out of the site. Are you trying to move product off the shelves? Are you hoping to collect leads your sales team can follow up on? Are you wanting to get a message out to and create an interactive relationship with your already receptive audience? All of these goals offer possibilities for real success with today’s technology, but the process starts by clearly identifying your goals.

Planning

Planning is the most important part of the process. A number of different designs will work, and there are many capable developers working today. However, the analysis that takes place during the design process is the foundation of all the labor that follows. Who are your users? What do you want from them? What do they want from you?

Goals

This conversation will look different from project to project. Let’s take a manufacturing company, for example, who wants to update their image. They are developing a marketing strategy to ensure their customers and prospects that their technology is state of the art and that they are serving some of the leading industry players.

They want potential clients to find them by providing relevant information about their products and services that will rank well with Google. This involves a discussion about what they do well, what is the most profitable, and what visitors should know about it all. What images and case studies can you provide to craft a compelling story about your effectiveness?

Testimonials

Part of the strategy is to make your site visitors feel like they’re missing out on something. Your site is so polished and filled with information and testimonials, the visitor can’t believe they’re not working with you already! “Wow,” they think, “they’re working with everybody in the business, how can I not be using these guys?”

When you say “We’re the best in the business,” it sounds like hubris, and it’s frankly hard if not impossible to believe. When you have a testimonial from a client (especially, if you can get it, someone well known in the industry) saying, “These guys are the best in the business!” that’s powerful.

Who are your users? What do you want from them? What do they want from you?

Case Studies

Nothing sells like a story. Mankind has passed down lessons through story for millennia. We are far more receptive to a message when wrapped in narrative. You’re not just saying “We know how to do this,” you’re proving it!

I’m working with a client right now whose site I can’t wait to launch. They have the most compelling case studies I’ve ever heard. Clients have come to them with seemingly insurmountable challenges, and they’ve delivered every time. Meanwhile, the efficiencies gained by the clients have paid for the systems and installations many times within just a few months.

Case studies also offer the best opportunity for you to collect leads. Offer to e-mail the visitor a story about how Company XYZ has achieved ABC (for remarkably less than industry average or within a fantastically tight timeline or accompanied by an astonishing increase in throughput). This is a classic win-win: the user gets valuable information e-mailed right to their inbox, and you get an e-mail to follow up with—either for a sales touch or a scheduled newsletter.

User Profiles

The more you can envision precisely who your users are, the more you can craft a message that has value and meaning to them. One user might be unconvinced what you offer is valuable. Create a call-out specific to them. Use case studies and industry statistics to tell them how they can benefit from what you have to offer.

Another user might be working with a competitor and need to understand why you’re different. Use testimonials to represent the relationships you have in your market and why your customers value you.

Don’t expect to close the sale through your Web site. It’s a tool for furthering the conversation. Offer them something in exchange for the ability to contact them and make a personal connection.

Design

Design is, of course, the most obvious component of a Web site. The logo, colors, and images you use tell the visitor about you before they read a word you have to say. Being at the forefront of your market in what you do includes leveraging current Web practices for your design. You might think, with the availability of do-it-yourself templates and desktop Web-related applications out there, that you can skimp on this part by diving into this over a weekend. It’s hard. Designers I respect have spent years honing their skills and always bring a unique perspective to the job, along with their remarkable abilities to realize, through one design, the many impressions you need to convey.

I’ve included throughout this article several of the designs that have been implemented for recent projects of mine. Each is unique and uniquely suited to the organization’s mission and value proposition. You can have a great message written in compelling language. If you don’t have an attractive and meaningful container for it, it can’t possibly be as effective.

Implementation

Developing Web sites for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the most important focus in today’s market. With so much competition on the Web and so much noise in general, every word needs to be considered. Here are some general pointers:

• The more frequently your content is updated, the more frequently your site will be indexed. The more your site is indexed, the more quickly you can get a new campaign or opportunity noticed by potential visitors.
• The more you talk about a particular topic, and the more other sites link to you talking about that topic, the more authoritatively you are seen by Google, which determines your placement in its all-important search results. Providing valuable information is the first link in the chain.
• The more you play by the rules, the more you can leverage a long-term campaign on the Web. Those who cheat by trying to stuff a bunch of keywords in their Web pages may gain in the short term but will eventually be found out and penalized. Take the time to craft quality, readable content, and it will pay off.
• The more you ensure your layout and functionality are accessible across popular browsers, the wider a potential audience you create for yourself.

Your implementation team should, in short, understand your goals for the site and be able to help you fully realize them while establishing a system built for long-term use and maximum efficiency.

There are many considerations to crafting sites. One of them is efficiency. If every time you add a new page to your site, you have to clone all the header and footer code, you’re risking mistakes and inconsistency. If you don’t have URLs that tell the user what they’ll see once they visit the page (say, “/index.cfm?page_request=4&menu_option=37″ as opposed to “/about/products”), you’re making the user guess as opposed to confidently visiting a link. This is especially true when it comes to choosing among options from Google results. Which of the above two links would you click on first?

A developer is offering you the most value if they’re creating an efficient site that allows you to do less work and asks more from the Web server. If a new content item should appear in three places on the site (for example, an upcoming event appears as a date and title in the sidebar, as a brief summary announcement on the home page and with full details on the calendar), you should only have to enter it once, and the Content Management System (CMS) can do the rest.

The developer, or at least the consultant, should be well versed in SEO and understand the importance of titles, headings, and keyword density. They should understand your business well enough to be an advocate for it as they help edit your content so that it has the maximum impact both for human readers and search engines.

Your implementation team should, in short, understand your goals for the site and be able to help you fully realize them while establishing a system built for long-term use and maximum efficiency.

Launch

Be sure you leave time in your schedule for testing and review. Invite friends, relatives, and colleagues to review the site and offer feedback. You may not be able to radically change things at this point or add exciting new feature ideas that the reviewers have. That kind of feedback belongs in the planning stage. But you can ensure things are spelled correctly, you can ensure everything works, you can tweak headings for maximum impact, and so on.

Plan a soft launch that’s only announced to a closed group of people. Don’t discourage them from passing word on to others, but don’t announce it to the public just yet. There are often minor bugs that need to be worked out but that don’t surface until a couple of dozen people have kicked the tires.

Your work isn’t done, the opportunities are just beginning.

Once you’re certain that it’s ready, announce it to the world. Send out press releases to local and trade media, and let your clients and prospects know what you’re offering them with the new site. Then continue to monitor things. Your work isn’t done, the opportunities are just beginning.

Use Web analytics tools to monitor your traffic. What pages are working? Which aren’t? What keywords are users finding your site with? You might find opportunities you didn’t realize you had, and you might also find you’re not as successful with some targeted keywords as you had hoped. Make some changes, and keep monitoring. Reach out to the users whose e-mails you’ve collected.

Remember that your Web site isn’t the be-all-end-all of your sales and marketing strategy. It’s a key component, to be sure, but the message you’re putting out there has to be consistent with your print campaigns, your exhibit booth, and what your sales staff are saying to clients and prospects. Only by matching the Web campaign to the overall strategy and delivering on each to its fullest potential can your organization reach its fullest potential.

I’ve consulted with businesses and non-profits for the past decade in the development and execution of effective Web strategy. Let me know how I can help: info (at) tylersclark (dot) com.

Popularity: 29% [?]